Dr. Yes Read Free Page B

perfectly normal.'
        'That's
just what they want me to think.'
        She
glared. I glared back.
        She
would win, but I was getting better.
        Fortunately,
or unfortunately, given what was to come, fate, or Augustine, intervened.
        'He
killed my wife.'
        We
both turned.
        'Who
did?' Alison asked.
        Augustine
shook his head.
        Alison
said, 'Sure let me get you a wee cup of tea and you can tell us all about it.'
        She's
unpredictable and contradictory, and I suppose it's part of the reason I love
her, albeit in an infinitesimally small way.
        The
tea boy brought the tea, and then sat there as if he was somehow entitled to
listen in to a deeply personal conversation. I gave him work to do in the stock
room, and he made a face, and I made one back, and he was about to respond in
kind when Alison gave him one of her looks and he quickly disappeared. I didn't
like it. I didn't like that he was more scared of her than he was of me. Or
that she thought she could boss him about when she didn't own the shop like I
did. I have the deeds. They're secure.
        'I'll
be mother,' she said, and I didn't much like that either. Augustine nodded
gratefully, but made no move for the cup. 'You were saying, your wife?'
        'My
beautiful Arabella. Oh yes. He killed her all right.'
        'Who
he?' I asked.
        Augustine
sighed. 'Do you remember the days when old people looked like old people? Old
and stooped and the women pulled tartan shopping trolleys behind them and wore
brown tights like bank robbers, but on their fat varicose legs? Whatever happened
to those days?'
        'Well
...' Alison began.
        'They
all want to fight time, don't they? My Arabella was the most beautiful girl in
the world, but you could tell her it until you were blue in the face and she
still wouldn't believe you. And now, of course, she is blue in the face.
I'm sixty-two years old. Arabella was sixty. She looked forty-five. But she
wanted to be twenty- five again. Oh, the price of vanity!'
        'So
who do you think killed her?'
        Tenacious
is my middle name. I had recently changed it from Trouble.
        He
looked me straight in the eye and said, 'You.'
        He
paused.
        Whether
he meant it to be dramatic or not, it was.
        Alison
looked at me, already prepared to accept that I was guilty.
        'You
know what it's like for a crime writer like me, don't you?' Augustine
eventually continued. 'My name is known, the critics love me, but I haven't
made a red cent from my books. I scraped by for a while writing screenplays,
but that was twenty years ago. All this time I've been writing; I've a room
full of manuscripts, but I've never sent them out, never been happy with them.
But all these years, my Arabella has been supporting me. She's from landed
folk, inherited money, and we've lived well, but we whittled most of it away
travelling. Once the Troubles were over, we talked about coming back here, we
looked at houses. Arabella's a social girl, she likes the parties and the
theatre and cocktails, so when she came back, she wanted to look her best. That's
where he comes in: the Yank, Dr Yes, Dr Chicago, whatever the hell you want to
call him.'
        The
names meant nothing to me, but Alison was on it straight away.
        'I
know exactly who you mean. Dr Yeschenkov; he's yummy, all the girls
would have his babies. With the exception of me, obviously.'
        I
raised my hands, helplessly. 'Will someone elaborate? Please?'
        'He's
a plastic surgeon,' said Alison. 'He has his own private clinic, he runs a
programme called
        'The
Million-Dollar Makeover,' said Augustine. 'Nothing would do Arabella but she
had to have it.'
        'He
takes you away for like six weeks . . .'
        'He's
cut it down to four.'
        'He
puts you up in a swanky hotel . . .'
        'It
wasn't that swanky.'
        'And
he does a whole series of